News - page 1686

During today’s fourth quarter earnings call, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer reassured the press that Apple has “made a number of improvements to Maps in the past months, and will work non-stop until Maps reaches our high standards.” Apple’s new Maps application in iOS 6 came under heavy criticism out of the gate for being buggy and unreliable. Many expected Apple to release a mapping solution that was as good (if not better) than Google Maps, but iOS 6’s Maps still leaves much to be desired.

Apple CEO Tim Cook recently issued a public apology for the Maps app, and Apple is temporarily recommending third-party mapping solutions in the App Store. Google is expected to launch a standalone Maps iOS app within the next few months.

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Apple’s revenues, profit, and cash hoard continues to grow. Even though the amount of profits Apple earned in Q4 2012 is down from Q3, their stash of cash has grown. Looking at Apple’s growth over the last 15 years, it’s incredible to see how Apple continues to grow like crazy.

Apple is currently holding its earnings call for Q4 2012, and now we’re hearing that many of you are experiencing iMessage problems around the world. Despite the fact that Apple is saying all systems are fine on its iCloud status page, it seems that many can’t send or receive iMessages. Game Center and FaceTime also seem to be down for many in different countries, namely areas in North America and Europe.

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Apple just posted some of their financial data from Q4 and to the surprise of everyone, it was another record breaking quarter. Apple sold more iPods, iPads, iPhones, and Macs than they have during any other Q4 in their history.

The numbers aren’t earth shattering, but considering that Q4 is a transition quarter, the competition should be terrified of what Apple’s numbers are going to look like during the Holiday quarter (Q1 2013).

Apple just announced its earnings for the fourth quarter of 2012 ahead of its conferenced call in 30 minutes. The company has reported $36 billion in revenue and $8.2 billion in profit. 29.9 million iPhones 14 million iPads and 4.9 million Macs were sold.

Apple expected to earn $34 billion in revenue, so it beat its own estimate met Wall Street’s average estimate of $35-$37 billion. All of Apple’s product sales are up when compared to Q4 of last year, but the Mac only grew 1%. iPad sales also suffered because everyone has been anticipating the iPad mini that was announced earlier this week.

Looking ahead to its next quarter, Apple expects a staggering $52 billion in revenue due to the holiday season.

Official press release from Apple:

Word on the street has been that Apple is preparing to launch its own Spotify/Pandora-killer in the near future, and a new report today from Bloomberg claims that the rumored internet radio service will launch in early 2013.

Apple has reportedly been in talks with many of the major music labels for quite some time, and deals will hopefully be reached by mid-November. The details of the upcoming service remain a mystery, but it looks like Apple isn’t settling for the status quo.

HEX3's JaJa is one of the first pressure-sensitive styluses on the market, and it is also the most unique. Instead of using low-power Bluetooth 4 to talk to your iPad, it uses high-frequency sound. This not only lets it work with the iPad 1 (or any capacitive-screened device whether iOS or Android), but means that the battery lasts for weeks.

I have been testing one out for a month or so now, and some big apps have now added support. So how does it do?

Apple fans have been disappointed that the iPad mini cost $329, while other 7-inch tablets cost significantly less. Phil Schiller defended the price saying consumers will pay for a quality product. He’s right. Apple’s going to sell a gazillion iPad minis, but the reason for it’s higher price tag might have a lot more to do with problems manufacturing the touch screen.

According to Digitimes, Apple’s $329 price tag for the iPad mini is largely due to low yield rates for the device’s GF2 (DITO film) touch screen technology.

If the Apple used a real apple and an MRI scanner to make their logo it’d probably look something like this. Brazillian physician Gabriel Camargo was at work the other day, eating an apple, when a thought popped into his brain that it’d be pretty cool to create an MRI scan of the Apple logo.

So he placed his apple in the idel MRI scanner that was nearby and the result was the image you see above. Even though the placement of the bite is a tad off, we think it looks pretty sweet.

Source: WIRED

The iPhone camera has sparked a revolution in self-portraits – both above and below the belt. One Apple fanatic in San Francisco has turned the habit of iPhone users to say cheese into inspiration for a new kind of portrait.

Igor Capibaribe takes the nude iPhone photos people send him and turns them into one-of-a-kind art works.

The final effect is so far away from DIY nudie shots that the photos here don’t really do them justice. If you’re in San Francisco, you can check them out on this weekend at his studio. (October 26th from 6-9 pm, October 27 and 28 from 11 am – 6pm, Studio 3A 2150 Folsom Street. You can also see more on his site.)

One of my favorite things about OS X is that if the need ever arises where I absolutely have to use a Windows only application, I don’t have to borrow a friend’s PC, I can just run Windows via Bootcamp right on my Mac. It’s not something I do often, but it has happened a few times.

Parallels makes the experience even better by letting you run Windows while you’re still using OS X so you only have to taste Windows for a brief momemt. With the release of Windows 8 approaching though Parallels posted a critical and urgent advisory note today telling Mac users that they should hold off on upgrading to Windows 8 for a little while.

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Just $124 will buy you the mCAMLITE, an aluminum case for your iPhone 5 which lets you attach all manner of photo and video accessories, as well as making it easier to hold.

No, this isn’t a stylish retro-camera case for fauxtographers, but it is a serious tool for photographers and videographers.

Each time Apple releases a shiny new device lusted after by consumers across the globe, workers at Chinese factory manufacturers pay the price more than anyone who waits in line at an Apple Store for five hours to shell out $329.

As soon as production of an Apple product goes into launch mode, Chinese factory workers get hit by a wave of chemical fumes, 12-hour work shifts, unpaid overtime, and even explosions, as they are hurried to assemble the device.

After over a year of rumor and speculation, we’re less than a day away fr0m the iPad mini finally going up for preorder. Starting at 12:01AM Pacific Time, the iPad mini (Wi-Fi version only) will be available for preorder on Apple’s official site, with units delivering on November 2nd.

It’s always hard to tell with a new product, but if history is anything to go by — the iPhone 5 preorders sold out within hours, and stock is still short — the iPad mini is going to be crazy in-demand. If Apple starts preorders in the middle of the night, it’s because they’re anticipating a madhouse… such a madhouse that if they held it in the middle of the day, their servers would crash under the pressure.

Hence this guide. We’re going to walk you through the best ways to make absolutely sure you get your iPad mini preordered right at the stroke of midnight and in your hands next Friday when it officially launches in the minimum amount of time, so you can go right back to sleep.

Wondering which iPad mini to buy? Check out our guide to finding the one that is right for you.

Why buy a whole new stylus and carry it around with you when you could just buy a little capacitive tip to slip onto the top of your biro/ballpoint pen/pencil? That’s the thinking behind Stylus Caps.

Each time Apple releases a new product, American TV show hosts rush out with their jokes about it. Conan O’Brien consistently comes out with the best Apple jokes, and he’s got another great one with this new video that uncovers the real reason why you want to buy an iPad mini.

Source: YouTube

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Over 45% of iPad owners are a little upset that Apple announced the iPad 4 on Tuesday. Even though the iPad 4 is a small spec bump, the iPad 3 has only been on the market for six months, making some iPad 3 owners feel like they got screwed out of having the latest and greatest iPad.

Toluna QuickSurveys conducted a study involving 2000 iPad owners, and they discovered that  50% of iPad 4 owners are upset about the launch of the iPad 4, followed by 45% of iPad 2 owners and 40% of first-generation iPad owners being upset as well.

We love DODOCase here at Cult of Mac. They are the finest of a surprising number of purveyors who makes cases that turn your iDevice into a simulacrum of the Moleskine, and now they’re doing the same by selling three new products for the iPad mini.

There’s the classic DODOCase, which starts at $59.95, the DODOCase Hardcover, which starts at $35,94, and the BookBack, which affixes the back of your iPad mini with a Moleskine-like leather and costs just $19.95.

All of Dodocase’s products for the iPad mini are available to buy now. Stay tuned for a Cult of Mac review.

Source: DODOCase

It used to be that Mac owners had to wait for an OS update to get RAW support for their new cameras. This — of course — meant a long wait. Now they pop out whenever they're needed, and you don't even have to restart your Mac.

It's like we're living in the future and, with Marty McFly arriving on his hover-board in just three years from now, that's exactly how it should be.

I seldom let my geekiness get in the way of my nerdiness, but even I’m slavering over this Eye of Sauron iPhone 5 case designed by Shapeways user joabaldiwn, “in which the Apple logo becomes the evil eye of Sauron, in the tower of Barad-Dûr, by the fiery pits of Cupertino… I mean, Mordor.”

I own a cheap plastic tape measure. I also own (or rather, haven’t yet tossed out) a conference lanyard with a retractable card holder for my laminated ID.

Why am I telling you this? Because both of them look just like the Memoto, a teeny-tiny lifeblogging camera which you wear around your neck or clip on your clothes. Like both of my crapgadgets, the Memoto is small and inconspicuous. Apart from the bright-orange color…

Sir Jonathan Ive, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Design, is much like Apple’s products: at best, he only comes in two colors. Even though he has been used in promotional videos for eight new Apple products in just the past three years, he has only ever worn two shirts through all of them.

Luckily, he’s Lon Chaney-like in regards to the number of expressions he can put on his face. Unfortunately, not all of them are what we would call strictly dignified.

Along with AT&T yesterday, Sprint tosay has announced their third quarter 2012 results, and activated 1.5 million iPhones during that period, 40% of whom are new customers… essentially the same number of new iPhones per quarter Sprint has maintained for the entire year of 2012 to date.

It wasn’t all sunny, though. The company reported a net loss of $767 million for the third quarter against $7.3 billion in revenues.

Source: Sprint

As is their wont, as if their drive, the lovely boys over at iFixIt have already ripped apart the new 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro to check out the gooey silicon insides of Apple’s latest laptops.

Hey, Pocket users, good news: today sees the release of Pocket for Mac, a native OS X app which you can download for free from the Mac App Store.